Diddy continues to face more accusations of sexual assault, with the latest being a recounting in a new lawsuit of an alleged 2001 rape that was, according to the complaint, videotaped and subsequently shared.
A woman named Thalia Graves filed the complaint on Tuesday (September 24) in federal court in New York. [You can read it here.] In the suit, she alleges that back in 2001, she was dating someone who worked at Bad Boy, and Diddy called her to set up a meeting, under the guise of needing to talk to her about her partner’s “performance issues” at work.
While in Diddy’s SUV, she alleges in the suit, the mogul gave her a glass of wine, which had been drugged. The complaint says that she passed out shortly after arrival at Diddy’s studio and when she woke up, “she was naked, and her hands were tied behind her back with what felt like a plastic grocery bag.”
The suit recounts her alleged subsequent rape by both Diddy and his then-bodyguard Joseph Sherman, who is also named in the suit.
“Following the assault and multiple times over the years, both Combs and Sherman contacted Plaintiff and warned her to be silent, threatening repercussions including Plaintiff potentially losing custody of her son if she ever disclosed the assault,” the suit continues.
Then, in November 2023, the suit says that Graves’ former boyfriend revealed to her that Diddy and Sherman had shown him a video of the assault — and alleges that the two had a habit of doing this and selling the resulting videos.
“A Bad Boy artist later corroborated in a text message that Sherman ‘use[d] to sell porn of him doing this to chix’ and that Sherman ‘did that to a lot of women,’ the complaint reads.
“Combs and Sherman…had shown the video [of Graves’ assault] to multiple men, seeking to publicly degrade and humiliate both Plaintiff and her boyfriend.”
Attorney Gloria Allred, who is representing Graves, will be hosting a press conference in Los Angeles at 2:30 PM Eastern on Tuesday (September 24) to talk about the suit. It will be streamed live on Allred’s Facebook page.
HipHopDX has reached out to Diddy’s representatives for comment, but they have not responded as of this writing.
A similar accusation against Diddy came to light last week when songwriter Tiffany Red, a frequent Cassie collaborator, took to Instagram to share an experience she had with the disgraced Bad Boy mogul.
“Today, I feel a little safer knowing Sean Combs is behind bars,” Red wrote. “I’m grateful to the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York and Homeland Security for stepping in and showing Mr. Combs and the music industry, which enabled him that they’re not above the law. This past year has been incredibly stressful and terrifying at times, but I am grateful for the opportunity to free myself from all these dark experiences.
“While co-creating Cassie’s sophomore album, I was degraded by Sean Combs, deceived by him, his team, and the record labels about the music being released, I was exposed to Diddy’s abuse of Cassie and others in her circle, and I unknowingly consumed something laced without my consent at his Hombly Hills home studio while writing for Cassie back in 2017.”
She continued: “I’ll never forget screaming, ‘What’s in this?!’ I knew instantly after smoking the joint that something was wrong. I got away that night by the grace of GOD, but I am haunted by the things I can’t remember about that evening.
“No one should have to endure this kind of trauma to pursue success in the music industry. We all deserve better.”
